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The NCAA wasted no time in challenging a new Pennsylvania law designed to keep the $60 million Penn State fine over the Jerry Sandusky scandal in the state, filing a federal challenge to the legislation hours after Gov. Tom Corbett signed it Wednesday.

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Gov. Tom Corbett

State and congressional lawmakers have objected to use of the NCAA fine to finance child abuse prevention efforts in other states.

The complaint asks a federal judge to throw out the Pennsylvania Institution of Higher Education Monetary Penalty Endowment Act, saying it violates provisions of the U.S. Constitution. It also asks for an injunction to prevent the law from being enforced.

Defendants in the lawsuit are Corbett and three state officials who would be involved in handling or monitoring the money: the auditor general, treasurer and chairman of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.

Corbett believes the bill "makes sense and is the right thing to do," spokeswoman Janet Kelley said. The lawsuit is under review, she said.

Penn State signed a consent decree last summer in which it agreed to the fine, a four-year football bowl ban and other penalties shortly after a scathing report into how school officials handled reports that Sandusky, a former assistant football coach, was behaving inappropriately with children. He was convicted of sexually abusing 10 boys and is serving a 30- to 60-year prison sentence.

"By seizing the funds and restricting eligibility to benefit from the funds only to Pennsylvania programs benefiting only Pennsylvania residents, the act will defeat the consent decree's plain terms and frustrate the parties' intended purpose," the NCAA's lawyers wrote.

The lawsuit claims the new legislation is unconstitutional because it directs state officials to collect money to which the state is not entitled. It argues the state has no legal right to abridge the contract between the NCAA and Penn State and says the new law tries to regulate transactions by out-of-state entities in violation of the Commerce Clause.